


Seeing Red

by janonny



Category: Avengers Academy (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Minor Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-01
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-06-05 16:43:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6712894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janonny/pseuds/janonny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha is stepping up and going after the Red Hulk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seeing Red

**Author's Note:**

  * For [saiditallbefore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saiditallbefore/gifts).



> Thank you to my brilliant and quick beta-reader [astro_frog5](http://astro_frog5.livejournal.com/). I couldn't have gotten this ready by now without her. <3
> 
> Any remaining my mistakes are my own! Please feel free to point them out so I can correct them.

Natasha had been prepared for this situation, mostly because she was prepared for all situations. She had contingency plans. Her contingency plans had contingency plans.  

But it didn’t mean she had to like it.

“Me and Tony have been working on a way to deflect the  Gamma cannon. He has a program that will cause it to malfunction permanently, as long as it’s uploaded to the Leader’s ship. We just need to find a way to get it on there!”

“What about Red Hulk? He’s still under the Leader’s control and he’ll attack you as soon as you board the ship,” Natasha pointed out, refusing to succumb to Jan’s cheerful confidence that all would be right.

Jan beamed. “Let’s take him out together. We handled A-Bomb no problem, after all!”

And here it was.

“Where’s Tony?” Natasha asked, crossing her arms. “Is he going to help with Red Hulk too?”

She didn’t bother including Loki. He was off on the dance floor. _Again_. Why did he need to  dance so much? It had to be some sort of ploy; maybe a magical spell that was weaved through dance steps. It made no sense to her, but it was undeniable that his magic prowess seemed to increase after he spent time on the dance floor. Pah. Magic. She would look into that, after she uncovered _everything_ Fury was hiding, figured out what caused the Timefog, figured out what was actually _in_ the Timefog, and oh yes, the reason why Jan was here , trying to look innocent and talking about how _they_ could handle A-Bomb.

Jan peered up at her with wide blue eyes. “I told Tony that I had Red Hulk all handled and he could, um…”

Natasha raised her eyebrows. “He could what?”

“Oh, nothing, it’s not important,” Jan said, drawing circles on the ground with her left foot.

“I’m not helping until I know what he’s doing instead of dealing with Red Hulk and the Leader.”

Jan pouted but relented. “He’s teaching Steve a little bit of chemistry at Pym’s lab. Steve mentioned he needed help with Chem at the dance party, and I told Tony he should do it! You should have seen both their faces! I think I could have fried an egg on their cheeks. At least Steve’s blush really went well with his blue shirt.”

Oh God, save her from hormonal teenagers. 

Jan was practically bouncing on the tips of her toes as she continued, “They’re really adorable. You should have seen the way they were shuffling around each other, and Tony being all Tony as usual, talking about his hot tub. I guess you had to be there. Do you think you could maybe make it to my next party? I’m organizing a Celebrate The Leader’s Defeat party and I would really like to see you at one of my parties, being all cool and spy-like.”

“Okay, I’ll help with the Leader,” Natasha interrupted Jan’s excited ramble before she could get further into her party invite. “I don’t think we can stop the Gamma cannon otherwise and it’s really hard to sneak around the place when it's pointing at the Academy all the time. It’s ruining my undercover work.”

“Oh yay!” cheered Jan, throwing  her arms around Natasha’s waist and squeezing tight. Natasha patted her shoulders awkwardly. It had been a very long time since she was last  hugged; most people knew better than to initiate physical contact with her without an explicit invitation. Apparently, Jan didn’t know better.

“Let’s take a selfie to commemorate the start of a beautiful working relationship!” said Jan, whipping out her phone. 

Natasha ducked out of Jan’s surprisingly strong grip. She was on the Undercover Spy track at the Avengers Academy and part of the requirements was to stay out of Jan’s famous selfie collections.  

Quickly, she changed the subject, “So the two of us are going to take down Red Hulk? That will be legendary.”

“Oh, not just the two of us,” Jan said, seeming to realize she had forgotten something. “Falcon says he’ll help too!” 

“Why? I’m going to Stark Tower right now to find Red Hulk’s weaknesses. We might not need Falcon’s help.”

“Because Falcon’s brave. And he’s a nice guy. As soon as I told him you were scared, he—”

“You told him what?!”

It was the first time Natasha had ever seen Jan actually looked surprised and a little afraid. Jan let out a squeak and fled. Natasha didn’t actually mean to frighten her that much, but why would Jan say such a ridiculous thing??

 Natasha wasn’t scared of anything. There was nothing that was a threat to her in this academy, she thought, looking out towards the Timefog at the creeping grey mist lapping the edges of the campus. 

* * * * * *

The first place to start was to figure out the security system on the Leader’s ship. The Leader would have been smart enough to change the security codes and guard rotation since the last team broke in, so Natasha couldn’t rely on their old intel. She would have to start from scratch. J.A.R.V.I.S. seemed up for the challenge; the Artificial Intelligence began testing out the Leader’s firewalls, which had been upgraded to better security standards after Tony had made short work tunnelling through them. Natasha shifted the modules on the holographic interface around, enlarging the module that showed potential communications signals  on board the Leader’s ship.

“This seems like a good place to start,” Natasha said. “Focus on any communication from the guards. Intel from Jan indicates that they’re not that well-trained so someone is probably using an unauthorized communication device onboard that ship and hooking it into the ship’s  systems. That could be our way through the Leader’s security.”

“Astute as always, Agent Romanoff. I’ll work on that first,” J.A.R.V.I.S said.

Natasha hid a grin. “I haven’t graduated, so I’m not an agent yet.”

“From my calculations, it will only be a matter of time,” J.A.R.V.I.S. said with the complete certainty that only an A.I. relying on pure numbers could have.

This time, Natasha let the smile she was repressing show. There was no one around but J.A.R.V.I.S. anyway, and she knew she could trust him, probably more than some of her fellow students. She looked out of the windows behind the holographic interface and admired the view. Tony really had the best of everything. Stark tower overlooked most of the Avengers Academy, and the sight of all the students' small figures moving from building to building filled her with a warmth she rarely acknowledged.

The only thing that marred the view was the bright red laser, splashing against the invisible shield surrounding the main Avengers building.

There was no way she was going to let the Leader continue with his attacks and unleash the Red Hulk in her home. Not while she was still standing.

* * * * * *

Natasha ran several tests on the new armor Tony had made for her at Stark tower. Not that Tony had given Natasha the new-and-improved armor directly. He had done the delivery through J.A.R.V.I.S., because he was apparently too busy these days to meet up face-to-face. Natasha found that suspicious, but she found everything suspicious, and this was pretty low on the list .

She watched J.A.R.V.I.S.'s robots try to gouge a hole in her armor to get to the dummy bot underneath . Soon, they would move on to a fire test, while she stayed safe behind the protective glass walls. Her contemplation of the tensile strength of her armored suit was interrupted when Jan waltzed through the door with Sam in tow.

Jan started talking like they were in the middle of a conversation. “I’ve been practising all my bob and weave moves for ten hours, and I’m so good now that I bet even you can’t track me once I’m up in the air. And I’ve been at the shooting range hitting bullseyes for the other ten hours! I’m totally ready to take on Red Hulk and the Leader!”

Natasha raised an eyebrow, but she was secretly pleased with Jan’s progress' that she'd been monitoring silently through J.A.R.V.I.S.

She looked at Sam. “And what have you been doing?”

Sam responded with steady confidence, “Researching the Leader and the Red Hulk. And I’ve been practising my hand-to-hand combat at the fight club.”

Natasha looked back to her armor, which seemed to have stood up against all the tests. “It looks like we’re all ready to go then. We should take the night off to recuperate and be all rested up for an early infiltration against the Leader.”

Sam and Nat nodded and moved towards the exit again.

“Sam, could you stay for a minute?” Natasha said.

Sam looked surprised and wary but said goodbye to Jan and stayed back without any hesitation.

Once the door was shut, Nat said without any preamble, “I’m not afraid of Red Hulk.”

“I know,” Sam said with a shrug. “It’s hard to imagine you being afraid of anything. Even harder to imagine you admitting it.”

Natasha frowned. “If you know that, then why did you agree to join in when Wasp told you- gave you that stupid reason?”

“Wasp only said that because she worries about you and because she’s your friend. I’m just here to help,” Sam said, with earnest sincerity.

Natasha faltered. “That’s… nice. I guess.”

Sam grinned. “I’m a nice guy.”

At this, Natasha rolled her eyes. “Get out of here.”

_At least the Falcon was good at taking orders_ , Natasha thought as Sam backed out with a sloppy salute and disappeared out the door. That could come useful in the field.

* * * * * *

In the end, there wasn’t even any need to break into the Leader’s spaceship. The megalomaniac had the ship doors wide open for them. The Leader was so confident in Red Hulk’s abilities to defeat anyone, that he actually wanted them to come in so that he could gloat over it.

Natasha and Sam squared off against the Leader and Red Hulk. Jan was in her Wasp form and she was keeping out of sight as  planned. She had the program with her that Tony had coded. While Natasha and Sam were distracting the Leader and Red Hulk, Jan was to use the backdoor J.A.R.V.I.S. and Natasha had built to get into the system and then upload Tony’s program to take the Leader’s weapons offline permanently.

Natasha made a hand gesture behind her back, a signal for Jan to get going and find a place to plug in the USB stick she was carrying with her .

“You think you can stop the Red Hulk?” cackled the Leader. “Just the two of you puny humans? Neither of you are superpowered!”

“We don’t need to be,” Natasha said, as she launched herself at the Leader, right arm extended.

As she expected, Red Hulk leapt in front of the Leader, taking the Widow’s Bite that was intended for the Leader’s enlarged green head . Red Hulk’s arm crackled with electricity that leapt up to his shoulder and he roared. Natasha used her momentum to kick off the Red Hulk’s torso, executing a perfect backflip just in time to get out of his grabbing range.

But Red Hulk was fast too , and he was already throwing a heavy punch before she had even landed. Natasha ducked his fist which was the size of her head, but before she could move into a defensive stance, a shadow fell over them and Sam crashed into the Red Hulk’s back. Red Hulk fell forward onto his hands and knees with a thunderous boom, causing the entire ship to shake. In less than a blink, Sam launched himself off Red Hulk’s back and was in the air again. He couldn’t go very high up despite the large chamber they were in , but he could swoop away quickly in the air, faster than he could run on the ground. 

Natasha took the opportunity to kick Red Hulk in the head and hit him with her Widow’s Bite in the shoulder, but that only seemed to enrage him. She darted away as he rolled to his feet and charged. He was fast. Faster than he was earlier, and when she twisted aside, she couldn’t avoid the elbow that clipped her and sent her tumbling to the ground.

It hurt, but not as much as it would have without her impact-absorbing body armor. She pretended to be winded and stayed on the ground long enough for Red Hulk to stomp over and try to punt her across the room. She rolled out of the way so that the gigantic foot flew over her body, and then rolled again when he followed after and tried to kick her again. It was the only strategy she could think of at the moment. Avoid Red Hulk’s blows and tire him out.

Sam must have tried the same tactic that he executed earlier, because suddenly Red Hulk was twisting away. Natasha couldn’t see what happened as she leapt to her feet, but she saw Sam careening away from Red Hulk and smashing into a wall. He slumped to the ground.

Red Hulk charged towards Sam, only to come to a screeching stop for no reason Natasha could see. Then he started bellowing and swatting at his own face.

It had to be the Wasp.

Natasha clicked on her communicator. “Wasp, watch his fists. And be careful, he can jump at least 30 feet.”

Jan laughed through her communicator. “I can handle him, Widow!”

“Red Hulk is a lot faster than he looks! Don’t let him fool you!” Natasha urged, trying to get the message across.

“Wasp and learn, Natasha! Wasp and learn!” Jan said with a tinkling giggle.

Save her from teenagers who loved superhero name puns .

Jan was barely visible from this distance as she flew circles around Red Hulk’s head, sending stinger blasts at his eyes. Red Hulk bellowed and tried fruitlessly to swat her out of the sky.

Remembering the original plan, Natasha asked into her communicator, “Did you manage to upload the virus, Wasp?”

“Yes, it’ll take ten minutes to work so we just need to distract Red Hulk until it’s done!” Jan said, sounding a little short on breath.

“Alright, I’m joining in,” Natasha said.

She crept closer and ducked under a swinging fist to send a stinging Widow’s Bite against Red Hulk’s right ankle. It was enough to jolt Red Hulk into a stumble, allowing Jan to fly further away for a breather. Out of the corner of her eyes, Natasha saw Sam launch himself into the air again, obviously recovered from the earlier hit. Natasha leapt back out of Red Hulk’s reach, just in time for Sam  to do a fly-by and slam a punch into his shoulder. By the time Red Hulk turned around to attack Sam, Jan had swung in to shoot stingers right in his eyes again.

They were working well together, moving in tandem like they had been doing this for years, not just for the first time. Maybe they could pull this off after all.

That was when it went to hell.

Red Hulk stumbled a few steps to his right, throwing his arms out wildly, and the unexpected move actually connected with Natasha’s side and sent her flying. She smashed against the floor hard enough for her vision to go black for a split second. By the time she pushed herself up, shaking her head to clear her blurry vision, Jan was dive-bombing recklessly at Red Hulk’s face.

As Natasha had said earlier, Red Hulk was fast, faster than seemed possible for such a large creature. A red hand snapped out into the air and closed around Jan all of a sudden. Her scream was shrill and piercing through the communicator.

Sam was already diving down again, but Red Hulk, unwilling to relinquish his hold, ducked away from Sam and punched out wildly at his wings. Sam was forced to bank sharply to get away.

A thought crossed her mind and Natasha turned to where the Leader was standing and watching the whole fight unfold from his small raised platform. He was rubbing his hands in glee. Natasha smiled a feral grin and pushed herself into a sprint in his direction.

“Melon head, I’m going to take you down!” Natasha shouted as she charged him.

The Leader turned from the fight to see her less than ten feet away. He screamed and started shouting, “Red Hulk, protect me!”

Unable to oppose the brainwashing, Red Hulk let go of Jan and came running to the Leader’s rescue, which was exactly to Natasha’s plans. She kept moving forward because she had a headstart on Red Hulk and he would need to accelerate to even catch up to her. Natasha was close enough to see the red veins in the Leader’s eyes as they widened in horror at the sight of Natasha _and_ Red Hulk bearing down on him.

At the very last moment, Natasha swung to the right, changing her course so that she skidded past the platform the Leader was standing on. Red Hulk’s much larger mass couldn’t stop or turn at quite the speed she could. She saw him trying to turn, but it wasn’t enough, not at the speed he had built up to try to overtake her. His right shoulder crashed into the platform even as he tried to turn away and the impact sent the Leader flying. Red Hulk’s momentum kept him going, until he crashed into the wall behind the platform.

Natasha wasted no time. She ran over to his prone form. He was groaning loudly and trying to get up. She pressed the Widow’s Bite on both wrists to the temples of his head.

“Sorry about this,” Natasha said. “Don’t be mad. Or madder.”

Then she activated the Widow’s Bites.

Electricity shot out of the devices around her wrists and cackled into Red Hulk’s head. She kept the Bite going, even as Red Hulk bellowed and shook. His body stiffened, muscles seizing up as the electricity coursed through his head until the charges in her Widow’s Bite were completely drained.

She stood up, feeling a little wobbly but trying not to show it. Red Hulk wasn’t moving on the ground, but his back was moving with every deep breath. At least he wasn’t dead. But was it enough to break the device that had him under the Leader’s mind control? And if it was, had she done any permanent damage?

The Leader was screeching from behind them. “You’ve allowed yourself to be beaten by two women, and a powerless peon strapped to a rudimentary jet-propulsion system! Pull yourself together and get them!”

Red Hulk groaned and then pushed to his knees. He looked up at Natasha, and she took a step back, tensing for another battle. Then his craggly red face broke into a feral grin.

He looked around Natasha at the Leader. “Maybe after I thank ‘em for breaking your mind control…”

The Leader paled to a pastel green, which was not a very fetching color on him. Red Hulk charged after the Leader who gurgled in terror and ran out of the chamber into a tiny corridor. Red Hulk couldn’t actually fit into it, but that didn’t stop him from pursuing the Leader by smashing a larger hole through and from the sound of it as he left the chamber, destroying walls that were between him and his target.

Natasha walked over to Sam who was helping a regular-sized Jan to her feet. She must have transformed out of her Wasp form after Red Hulk let her go. Natasha rubbed at her aching side as she came up to them.

“Are you alright?” she asked Jan.

She assessed Jan for injuries, but surprisingly, Jan was standing upright without Sam’s help, hand on her hip and smirk firmly in place. She even said with a smile, “Mission accomplished, team! Go us!”

Sam seemed to be coming to the same conclusion as she was, because he asked with understandable surprise, “How are you not hurt right now? Hulk squeezed you in his fist!”

Jan grinned, “Oh, I’m totally in a lot of pain.”

Natasha winced. Right. So Jan was just putting up a good front, for whatever reason.

“Do you need a doctor?” Natasha asked.

“For sure! Thanks for asking!” Jan said again, through a very fake wide grin.

Natasha smiled, moving in to provide a shoulder for Jan to lean on. “Then let’s get out of here. Red Hulk is probably tearing the ship apart.”

“Good idea. We don’t want to be on this thing if it falls out of the sky,” Sam said as he helped Jan from the other side, limping as he moved.

* * * * * *

The ship didn’t fall out of the sky.

At S.H.I.E.L.D.’s medical facility, Sam was treated for a sprained ankle and Natasha had her wrist wrapped. Jan was still being seen in the examination room when Natasha and Sam, watching through the waiting room’s window, saw the Leader’s ship wobble in the air before a red figure leapt off it and the ship zoomed away. Looked like the Leader was turning tail and running, but Red Hulk might be here to stay.

Sam said, “I got a text from Tony. He said that the Gamma ray turned off while we were inside the ship.”

“His program worked. He’ll be insufferable,” Natasha grumbled.

“Yeah, his text was to invite us to his ‘Tony is awesome’ party at the club,” Sam said, grinning.

Natasha crossed her arms, considering. “I have been thinking about checking out the robot at the club. I think it might be a spy for Fury.”

“Are you serious?” asked Sam, eyes wide.

“About Fury’s suspicious activities and spies? Always,” Natasha answered.

Sam eyed her uncertainly, and Natasha turned to stare out the window again.

Before she could second-guess herself, she said, “You weren’t too bad today, Falcon. How’s it feel to knock out a Hulk?”

“Painful,” Sam said with a self-deprecating laugh as he leaned against the window sill to rest his sprained ankle. “And you did most of the work anyway.”

“I know. But I’m glad you were here to help,” Natasha said, allowing a moment of honesty.

She didn’t turn away from the window, but she could see Sam’s wide, surprised eyes in the reflection.

The mission had been successful. They had all played their parts well, working together with ease to balance each of their weaknesses and strengths. Natasha was surprised by how it felt, to know she could rely on someone during a mission. It left her feeling …

… _strong_.

“Miss Romanoff, Mister Wilson,” Doctor Cho said from behind them, breaking Natasha out of her reverie.

Natasha turned to see Jan walking gingerly out of the examination room.

“Is Jan alright?” Sam asked.

After a nod from Jan, Doctor Cho said, “The worst of her injuries are the deep bruising over almost all of her right arm, her right leg and some of her torso, but the lucky lady has no other injuries.”

“Oh, I’m totally fine,” Jan said with an irrepressible grin. “I can still text left-handed!”

Sam broke into a laugh and Natasha shook her head, but she couldn’t bite back a smile. Jan gave her a thumbs up with her left hand.

“Come on, let’s get back to the dorm. I think we deserve some rest,” Natasha said, stepping forward to help Jan.

“Ooh, and then I can throw that scrapbook party that I had to postpone because of the stupid Gamma ray business,” Jan said cheerfully.

Sam groaned. “Come on, Jan. A scrapbook party, really?”

Natasha opened the door and helped Jan out the medical centre, even as she said as nonchalantly as possible, “I don’t know. Sounds like it could be fun.”

She didn’t look up to see their expressions because she wasn’t sure she could hold back her laughter if she did, but she was pretty sure it would have been priceless. 

Maybe she would give this friendship business a try after all…

** END **

**Author's Note:**

> I have been away and I just got back so this fic has been rushed a little. I hope you enjoyed it anyway, saiditallbefore!
> 
> The Avengers Academy verse has been pretty fun to play around in and I think I'll be writing more in this verse!


End file.
